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Author:
Frank Gasiorowski

Did you know that having a Stroke is the third largest threat to your life?

The facts are that 500,000 - 700,000 people have a stroke each year and this number is rising much to fast. Millions of brain cells die each minute a stroke is untreated.

The American Stroke Association advises:

“Stroke is a medical emergency. Know these warning signs of stroke and teach them to others. Every second counts:

• Sudden numbness or weakness of the face, arm or leg, especially on one side of the body

• Sudden confusion, trouble speaking or understanding

• Sudden trouble seeing in one or both eyes

• Sudden trouble walking, dizziness, loss of balance or coordination

• Sudden, severe headache with no known cause

Call 9-1-1 immediately” if you experience any of the above symptoms! ”Time lost is brain lost!” Getting to the hospital within the first 60 minutes is critical!

There are three types of stroke: Clot (Ischemic), Bleed (Hemorrhagic) and TIA (Transient Ischemic Attack)

Chances are that it will happen to you or a loved one. It happened in my life to my parents within 2 years of each other. First, my Dad had a Clot (Ischemic) stroke and now my Mom has a Bleed (Hemorrhagic) stroke. Dad had a stroke that caused a clot to stop the blood flow to the brain. Mom had a hemorrhage in the brain stroke. Both are devastating to the person, the family and friends.

My mother is an energetic flamboyant person. Everyday she gets up early and makes her list for the day. She plans what she wants to do and does it with ease and a fastidiousness that would make a professional time manager cry. That was until the other morning when she awoke, washed and dressed for the day. Something had changed, she was dizzy and confused. She lay down in bed and became incoherent. The 911 was called. My mom was rushed by ambulance to the hospital 10 minutes away. She was rushed to John’s Hopkins Neuro-CCU by helicopter.

My mother suffered a brain stroke. A 5.1 cm amount of blood has collecting inside her brain. This is a major amount of blood to be released into a totally closed area. This also pushes on the gray matter (your brain) and causes brain loss. This loss can be permanent and irreversible. This is the point of this article. You never know how much time you have on this earth and what you will be like after a major health event like a stroke. This not only changes the victim but many other people as well.

My mom is in her tenth day of recovery from the stroke. The outcome is still up in the air but thank God she is getting better. My dream and outcome are for a full recovery over time with the help of dedicated medical professionals, a truly loving family and of course, GOD.

Now the lesson: If you are not living your life to the fullest now, when are you going to start? I saw a vivacious woman changed by an event in an instant.

When are you going to start living like you have no tomorrow? When are you going to laugh, have fun, create new friends, do what you have been putting off? Stop worrying about the bills, your job and your love life. Stop worrying but take action with a new attitude that you will live your life to the fullest. If you should have a life changing event tomorrow, will you be satisfied that you have lived fully.

This moment is all that we can be assured of having. What happens next is...

For more information on strokes visit:

The American Stroke Association
http://www.strokeassociation.org

A Division of:
The American Heart Association
http://www.americanheart.org

Frank Gasiorowski was awarded a Ph.D. in Philosophy/Humanities and is an Author, Speaker, Radio and TV Guest for http://www.90DayGoals.com and Voice-Over narrator on the new BIBLEMIX CD. Frank is one of the founders of the "Total Self Mastery University" http://www.TotalSelfMastery.com with Dr. Mike Davison. Frank is the Director of F.A.I.T.H. Ministry. http://www.FindAnswersInTheHEART.com

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A Quick Note From The Publisher... If you like the article above, you may be interested in the following article which is also related to Stroke Report... So You've Had a Stroke -- Now What? You have had a stroke. Hopefully, you went to the hospital when you developed your symptoms of weakness, numbness, altered speech or visual impairment. Your hospital care enabled you to limit the damaging effects of the loss of circulation to a portion of your brain. You've made it through the acute phase of stroke management. Now what? You will want to obtain the best achievable outcome from the impairments you already have. If you have "motor" impairments (weakness or clumsiness) you can rest assured that randomized, controlled trials -- the gold-standard method for determining a treatment's effectiveness -- have shown that physical therapy can improve your level of functioning. If you have speech impairment, then speech therapy might be beneficial, though this has never been proved by means of randomized, controlled trials. While it is important to focus on rehabilitation following a stroke, there are also other issues to attend to. As a survivor of a stroke you are at increased risk for another. Researchers at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Columbia University in New York studied 655 people who suffered first ischemic strokes. (Ischemic strokes are due to plugged blood vessels and not bleeds, and comprise 85-90% of all strokes.) Publishing their results in a March 2006 issue of the journal "Neurology," the investigators found that in the first five years following the stroke there was an 18% likelihood of another. Over the same time period the research subjects also had a 5% likelihood of a heart attack. Can you improve your odds? Absolutely! The process of using information from the first stroke to help prevent another is called "secondary stroke prevention." The idea is that if there is something that can and should be done to reduce one's risk, now...